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Thursday, January 8, 2009

Merry Open Source!

Now that the busy holiday season is over, I thought I might share what I just discovered: Open Source is like Christmas to me.

In my family, we always get presents from many friends and relatives and some from Santa Claus, too. We write thank you notes to all the people who send us presents, except Santa. In my husband's family, the children think that all the presents they get come from Santa, so there is a lot of exchanging of packages secretly as the relatives and friends give each other the presents that will be discovered under the tree. Nobody in his family writes thank you notes, because every present comes from Santa, who you of course do not know personally. He is a just a magical mystery who only comes by once a year, otherwise living incongnito. This difference in tradition was especially important this year because we had to figure out how Christmas presents would be “defined” for our son.

I like knowing who gave me what and being able to say thanks directly to the person responsible. If I don't like a present, I can ask the person to exchange it or return it. I also want to give presents to people and see their happiness and feel their appreciation.

For me, Christmas is about the joy of giving and receiving! That sounds a lot like working on an open source project, doesn't it? We know who contributed what and can say thanks for that contribution or ask them to change it. In addition, we have fun contributing and are pleased when our "presents" are appreciated.

How did we end up doing Christmas presents for our son? Open source style, of course!